


I Like Your Hair

by purple_flan



Category: Inazuma Eleven GO
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 10:37:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19462228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_flan/pseuds/purple_flan
Summary: Having a peculiar appearance can make your life hard, especially when you're a lonely foreigner struggling to make friends; however, Aimé doesn't know the person he will meet today on that soccer field  is going to forever change that for him.





	I Like Your Hair

**Author's Note:**

> I thought it would have been nice to take a short pause from the more NSFW stuff and, adding that I'm recently re-obsessing over Inazuma Eleven GO, I've decided to write this short story about the anime that first got me into writing fanfiction.  
> I can't describe how much I LOVE all of Dragon Link , especially their whole aesthetic (not to mention the chess motifs); this also explains why I immediately started shipping Yamato and Tetsurou after rewatching the show, since they're respectively the "king" and "queen" of the team (and they're also so cute together AAAAAA) (like, seriously, go search their ship tag on pixiv, you won't regret it).
> 
> Author's note:  
> I'm using the European dub names: Quentin is Yamato, Aimé is Tetsurou and Gyan is Daigo.

Aimé knew his appearance should have been the last of his problems.  
Moving from France to Japan, with all that came from it, had made life so much harder for he and his family: at first, he barely had any friends in school, and the few times people would interact with him it would have either been to give him extra homework or worse, to laugh behind his back about the two things he was most conscious of; that is, his thick accent, but most important his hair.

Neither of his parents had white hair, actually no one in his family at all. “It’s a rare condition”, he had heard God knows how many times, “very few children have it”.  
When he was little, his mother used to tell him it was a gift from a certain fairy who would come and visit the homes where an especially kind-hearted child would have been born; that was a way to tell people how much their soul was pure. Aimé still cursed himself for buying all that bullshit, and sometimes swore that, if that fucking fairy was real, he would have already hunted her down just to squish her to death like an annoying fly.  
That good woman had tried everything to make him get used to his peculiarity: if he really couldn’t change it, she thought, maybe she could find something to make him feel good in them.  
She had personally washed, cut and cared for them until her son was 10, each time coming up with an even sillier hairstyle: finally, one day she had settled down with the three braids and the shaved sides (of which the latter had in reality been Aimé’s invention), and even he couldn’t deny that she had made a great job.  
Sadly, however, not even the most lavish haircut would have distracted him from the main issue: when he was a child, every time he went to sleep he would pray to wake up with a beautiful head of black waves, and would inevitably cry when he wasn’t satisfied; but now, neither of those things made sense anymore, and Aimé could do nothing but trying not to pay attention to the cackling behind him or the way his scalp stung when his braids got pulled, resisting from turning around and swinging a punch to the other guy’s face; even though he was never calm enough to succeed.

He hadn’t been calm enough to resist that day either, when those dickhead classmates of his had decided to pull a prank on him by sticking chewing gum to the end of his longest braid, the one that ran all the way down his back. When he had noticed, he had kicked one of them so hard in the balls that he started crying like a little pussy, kneeling down on the floor desperately grabbing his crotch. To Aimé, that was the golden rule: _always hit where it hurts the most_. After all, he had learnt it from experience…  
“I’m so deep in shit now” he thought, huffing as he gazed at the soccer field from his bench.  
That was when he noticed him: another boy with a black shirt, lazily bouncing a ball in the corner. Curious, Aimé focused on him.  
  
He was tall, a lot for his age, and pretty good-looking. What struck him the most, however, was his hair: long and straight, and in a very weird shade. In the sunset’s light, he couldn’t make up whether it was ginger or pink; anyway, it certainly made him stand out.  
At the same moment, the boy turned his head towards Aimé: when he realized he was looking at him, his lips curled into a smile.  
“Hey, you!” he shouted. “Whatcha’ doing there all alone? Get down here, c’mon!”.  
Aimé froze. There was something weird about the way the boy’s voice sounded: could it be that…?  
“Hey! Did you hear me?” he shouted, louder.  
He immediately came back to his senses. “E-ehm, sorry!” he said in return. “I…don’t really feel like getting up”.  
The boy smiled again. “Oh, is that so? Don’t worry then, I’m coming in a second”.  
Mere moments after he spoke, he was already running up the grass of the ramp at the end of which Aimé was sitting. Now that he was closer, Aimé also had a better sight of his hair colour: finally, he remarked that it was a bright pink. Oh, it looked so pretty as the wind messed it up while the mysterious boy ran towards him…  
  
“Here I am!” he smirked, sitting on the bench to catch breath after that long run.  
“Do you want some water?” Aimé asked, handing him over his bottle.  
“Ooof…no thanks, I’m cool. I already have mine”. The boy took his backpack, pulled out a smaller flask and started sipping.  
Suddenly, he stopped. “Oh, how stupid! I didn’t even introduce myself!”.  
He turned and lifted his hand towards Aimé, smiling. “The name’s Quentin. What’s yours?”.  
Wait, _what_? “Quentin”? That surely wasn’t a Japanese name!  
“Oh…I’m Aimé, nice to meet you” he answered, as he shook his hand.  
His words seemed to surprise Quentin too. “Aimé? Wow, what a lovely name…you must be a foreigner too, am I right?”.  
“Yeah!”. For the first time, Aimé felt proud about his homeland.  
“Cool!”. Quentin pulled something out of the backpack: it was a passport. Aimé could only make out his name and surname, since all the rest was written in German; he never regretted more only knowing Japanese and French…  
“My father is from Dresden” he explained. “We moved here in Japan when I was 2”.  
“That must be why you speak Japanese so well”.  
That compliment made Quentin smile once again. “Thanks! You sound pretty good too, don’t worry”.  
Aimé felt something heavy in his chest. _Did he really mean it?_  
“Yeah, I know it’s difficult…but y’know, everybody gets better overtime. And after all, your accent is really cute…oh, if only German would sound like that!”.  
The white-haired boy didn’t answer and looked away.  
  
“By the way, can you play soccer?”.  
Aimé gave Quentin a puzzled look, as the boy put the soccer ball in his lap.  
“Just a little…”.  
“No problem, no one’s a pro here!”. He laughed, and Aimé did the same; it had been a while since he had last heard such a contagious laughter…  
“Come, let’s make some shots”.  
He ran back to the field, Aimé following him a few steps behind with the ball in his hands.  
“We can do it like this: one will guard the goal, and the other has to try and put the ball in. Let’s see who scores the most!”  
Aimé smiled as he put the ball on the ground. “Sounds good to me”.  
  
When he saw the other boy was ready, he took a few steps back: he charged and, once close enough, he kicked the ball with all of his might; unfortunately, however, the shoot was everything but straight, and the ball hit the goalpost before the keeper even had a chance to move.  
“Aim lower!”, he shouted. “The higher you shoot, the harder it is to score!”.  
The second try went better, except this time he didn’t kick it as strongly as before: Quentin caught it with almost no effort, but came to help once more.  
“Kick it in the middle next time, that’s the secret for giving your shoots an extra boost”.  
Aimé raised a brow: that Quentin guy surely knew his craft…he wondered where he got all that information from.  
Once again, he kicked the ball and this time, he made sure to follow his advice; in fact, the shoot was way better that the last ones: the ball flew long and fast, straight towards the centre of the goal.  
But even this time, Quentin was ready: he arched his whole body back and, when the ball was close enough, he promptly sent it flying back with a punch. Aimé stared at him for some moments, amazed by how swift his response had been: he might not have been a pro, but he sure was one hell of a goalkeeper anyway…  
“Nice shot!” he called out. “But you better try harder if you want to get past me!”.  
The boy chuckled nervously. “You’re pretty damn right”.  
They decided it was time for a change: Aimé hesitantly moved in front of the goal, while Quentin settled himself down in the middle of the field.  
“Heck, I’m not sure if I can do this…”.  
“Just stay calm and focus. When I’m about to kick it, think about where I’m going to shoot”.  
_Yeah, sure, it’s not like you’ve been training for probably **ages** …_  
Despite being sceptical, Aimé could do nothing but nod.  
“I promise I’ll go slow, OK?”.  
“Oh…OK?”.  
He swallowed and try his best to focus on the now former goalkeeper, who was now stepping back before taking a run at full speed towards Aimé’s spot.  
_Oh no, oh no, oh no, that was way faster that what he could manage!_  
He attempted to look as calm as possible, despite his heart pumping in his chest: he had absolutely no idea how to stop that shoot, especially when he couldn’t help but staring at those beautiful locks of hair swishing in the wind as Quentin ran, the sun setting them on fire in a warm orange light…  
“WATCH OUT!” he heard shouting.  
Aimé didn’t even have time to realize where the voice came from, when the dull pain of the ball hitting his face made him snap back to reality.  
  
He fell back, luckily landing on his ass: for some moments he just sat there, the buzzing sound in his ears too loud to even make him realize that Quentin was now by the goal, crouched on the ground beside him with an hand on Aimé’s forehead.  
“Oh God, dude! Sorry, did I hit you too hard?”.  
_You don’t say!_  
“Ugh…d-don’t worry, it’s my fault if I didn’t stop it. I…wasn’t focused”.  
“It’s OK”. The boy took out his flask again, along with a handkerchief that he proceeded to pour some fresh water on. “I don’t have any ice with me, but I hope this will do the trick” he said, as he started pressing it against Aimé’s head.  
“Thanks, man”. They just sat there for some moments, waiting for the cool to soothe the white-haired boy’s headache.  
“It’s just that…I keep getting distracted by your hair”.  
Quentin abruptly stopped, staring dumbfounded in the other boy’s eyes.  
  
“I’m sorry, _what_?”  
“Yeah…I know it’s weird, but I’ve never met anybody with such amazing hair as yours. Really, it’s…so beautiful. I’m almost jealous…”.  
Quentin bit his lip, even more confused by that compliment that seemed to come out of nowhere.  
“Well…”.  
An embarrassing silence fell between the two; they both looked away, their cheeks dyed in red and the most uneasy gaze in their eyes.  
  
“Quentin! There you are!”.  
A male voice calling for the goalkeeper’s name broke the quiet, making both boys turn in its direction.  
There stood a tall man, dressed as if he had just returned from a very important business meeting: his clothes and his hair, carefully slicked back, surely weren’t appropriate for a football field…  
“ _Mein Herzchen_ , what did I tell you about sneaking away while I’m at work?”. His demeanour seemed strangely calm, despite his voice clearly telling otherwise.  
“Dad, I’m not eight anymore” Quentin pouted. “What’s the deal if I go and have some fun instead of being alone all day?”.  
Aimé stared in his direction, then in the man’s. _Dad?_  
As a matter of fact, that should have been no surprise: he could have told first look how much the two looked alike. They both had that proud air in their expression, that elegant yet subtly conceited deportment and most concretely, the same unusual hair colour; however, his father’s was of a much duller shade, and, although equally peculiar, the sunset’s last rays didn’t make it shine in the same fiery light as Quentin’s.  
The man rolled his eyes, but didn’t change his take. That was when he noticed Aimé, standing a few inches behind his son.  
“Who’s he?”.  
“Oh, just a friend. His name is Aimé. I thought it would have been nice to teach him some soccer”.  
“And is he good?”.  
The boy’s face flushed beet red, which both Quentin and his father quickly noticed.  
“Yeah…yeah, he’s not so bad”.  
The man smiled and walked up to them. “Nice to meet you, Aimé” he said, shaking the boy’s hand. “I’m Gyan, Quentin’s dad”.  
“Ehm…nice to meet you too, mister Gyan”.  
“Sorry if my son was of any inconvenience. You know, we’re both great soccer fans and sometimes, he can get a little…excessive. And what’s more, you young people can be quite stubborn, am I right?”.  
“Don’t worry…your son is a great guy anyway. We’ve had so much fun”.  
“Glad to hear that”. Gyan turned towards Quentin, who smiled back.  
“Come on young man, let’s go home. You must be hungry after playing all this afternoon, aren’t you?”.  
The boy obediently nodded as his father walked off towards a black car, parked by the road near the pitch.  
“Bye, Aimé!” he exclaimed, a hand placed on his friend’s shoulder. “I hope we’re seeing each other soon”.  
The boy smirked back, “You can bet it”.  
After giving him one last friendly fist bump, the goalkeeper started walking away; he was about to climb the ramp from which he had run down before when suddenly, he turned back towards Aimé.

  
  
“Oh, by the way…” he said. “I like your hair too”.  


Those words, softly blown in the air of the dusk, left Aimé standing baffled on the pitch, his mouth falling agape as he watched Quentin leave with a smirk on his lips.


End file.
